NASA’s New Way To Land On Other Planets | Video

NASA has developed a new system for landing spacecraft on other planets. It is able to inspect the planet’s surface and pick the safest landing spot.

The project is called SPLICE, which stands for Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution. It aims to improve the safety of landings on other planets by combining laser sensors, a camera, a high-speed computer and sophisticated algorithms to scan the planet’s surface and determine the safest landing spots.

“What we’re building is a complete descent and landing system that will work for future Artemis missions to the Moon and can be adapted for Mars,” said the project’s manager Ron Sostaric. Three laser beams, each as narrow as a pencil, are pointed toward the ground. The light from these beams bounces off the surface, reflecting back toward the spacecraft.

The travel time and wavelength of that reflected light are used to calculate how far the craft is from the ground, what direction it’s heading, and how fast it’s moving. These calculations are made 20 times per second for all three laser beams and fed into the guidance computer.